US Pre-Grant Patent Publication No. 2010/0262765 to Wonmoon et al. discloses a storage apparatus that includes a memory unit and a controller adapted to set up a memory space of the memory unit as a user data space and a spare space according to a signal representing at least one of the user data space and spare space. Further disclosed are an electronic apparatus that controls the storage apparatus, and a method that controls at least one of the storage apparatus and the electronic apparatus to control a memory space of the storage apparatus.
US Pre-Grant Patent Publication No. 2010/0180069 Chih-Kang discloses a block management method for a flash memory of a storage system, wherein the flash memory includes a plurality of physical blocks. The block management method includes grouping the physical blocks into a plurality of physical units, and grouping the physical units into a data area, a spare area, and a replacement area. The block management method further includes performing a first physical unit switch which switches the physical units between the data area and the spare area, and performing a second physical unit switch which switches the physical units between the spare area and the replacement area. Therefore, the block management method can uniformly use the physical blocks and thereby effectively prolong a lifespan of the storage system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,535,949 to parker discloses a portable electronic device that includes a log-structured file system implemented in flash memory. The log-structured file system includes a write function for storing contiguous data records to the flash memory in the form of at least one data log, although the system may write data records to the flash memory using a plurality of data logs. The log-structured file system also includes a read function for retrieving data records from the one or more logs using a plurality of memory mapped pointers, which may be stored in an associated index. A clean-log function is also provided for eliminating inactive records from the log so that new data can be appended to the end of the log. The various functions associated with the log-structured file system are implemented as at least three software modules, a read module, a write module and a clean-log module, although other configurations are possible.
US Pre-Grant Patent Publication No. 2010/0122019 to Flynn et al. discloses an apparatus, system, and method for managing physical regions in a solid-state storage device. The definition module defines a physical storage region on solid-state storage media of a solid-state storage device. The physical storage region includes a subset of total physical storage capacity on the solid-state storage media. The storage controller performs memory operations within the physical storage region such that the memory operations are bounded to the physical storage region. The implementation module implements the physical storage region definition with respect to the storage controller for the solid-state storage media.